Brian Skaret, ’02 J.D., has been awarded the Attorney General’s Distinguished Service Award for the successful investigation and prosecution of the Barrio Azteca criminal organization earlier this year. This prestigious award is the second-highest conferred by the U.S. Attorney General.

Notre Dame Law School and the Center for Civil and Human Rights are pleased to welcome Judge Eduardo Ferrer Mac-Gregor, Judge of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, who will be visiting Notre Dame Law School from Monday, September 22 to Friday, October 3, 2014. As the Clynes Chair in Judicial Ethics, he will offer three seminars and a public lecture open to faculty and students.…

Dean Nell Jessup Newton is pleased to announce that Timothy L. Dondanville will become Dean of the University of Notre Dame Law School on September 9, 2014, and that he has agreed to serve in that important position until the close of business on September 9, 2014. During Dean Dondanville’s short – but surely memorable – deanship, Dean Newton will return to the faculty to concentrate on her research.

Islamic State (ISIS) militants who beheaded American journalist James Foley in Syria this week reportedly had demanded $132.5 million in ransom for his release.

Collecting ransom payments is a principal source of funding for ISIS, according to terrorist financing expert Jimmy Gurulé, professor of law at the University of Notre Dame, who says making such a payment is a federal crime.

Vinodh Jaichand ‘88 LL.M.,’96 J.S.D. began to study law because the South African thought it could be a tool for dismantling the system of apartheid. But after he arrived at the University of Notre Dame, he realized that the law may well be part of the problem.

In an important recent decision, U.S. v. Cannon (2014 WL 1633160), the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit relied heavily upon the work of Notre Dame Law School Professor Jennifer Mason McAward in interpreting the scope of Congress’s power to enforce the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Section Two of the Thirteenth Amendment empowers Congress to enforce the prohibition on slavery and involuntary servitude by addressing the “badges and incidents of slavery.” The court used Professor Mason McAward’s article,Defining the Badges and Incidents of Slavery (published in the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law), to understand the scope of that constitutional provision.

The Business on the Frontlines course began in 2008, and in 2010 was named one of Forbes Magazine’s ten most innovative business classes. Each class is comprised of students from the Mendoza College of Business, NDLS, and the Kroc Institute for Peace Studies.

Brian Murray ’11 J.D. and Jessica Howton ’11 J.D were the first two Public Interest Fellows at Notre Dame. Since 2011, nine Notre Dame Law graduates have served as Shaffer Fellows. Their experiences have taken them around the country and into a variety of legal areas.

An international interdisciplinary law and finance workshop co-sponsored by NDLS and spearheaded by NDLS Professor Colleen Baker will bring together legal academics, financial economists, policymakers, and legal practitioners at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago June 16-17.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday (June 2) released its Clean Power Plan, a long-awaited proposal that seeks to cut carbon emissions from existing power plants by 30 percent by 2030.

“These power plants account for about one-third of all such emissions within the U.S., and more importantly, they have historically escaped the brunt of regulation by the EPA, which generally focuses instead on newly constructed plants,” according to Bruce Huber, associate professor of law at the University of Notre Dame.

Richard A. Nussbaum II ’74, ’77 J.D. received the Rev. Edward Frederick Sorin, C.S.C., Award from the Notre Dame Alumni Association at Reunion. The award is presented annually to a Notre Dame graduate who has rendered distinguished service to the University.

Veronica Root will join NDLS as an associate professor of law, Dean Nell Jessup Newton announced today. Professor Root came to NDLS in 2012 with a two-year appointment as a visiting assistant professor from the Washington, D.C., office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, where she practiced in the firm’s Litigation Department. She will assume her new tenure-track position at NDLS on July 1.

NDLS Professor A.J. Bellia Jr. has been honored by the Virginia Law Review for co-authoring (with George Washington University Law Professor Bradford R. Clark) one of the most influential articles published by the Virginia Law Review in the past 100 years.

Dean Nell Jessup Newton has announced that the Peter Lardy Memorial Fellowship for the 2014-2015 academic year has been awarded to 2L Christopher Stewart. Stewart’s name will now be added to the Lardy Fellowship plaque’s list of recipients, which includes 2013-2014 Fellow Armando Cordoves and extends back to the first recipient, John F. Ready, in 1976.

Sara McLanahan, the William S. Tod Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University, delivered the keynote address for this year’s annual conference of the Leverhulme Trust on March 27 in Notre Dame Law School’s Patrick F. McCartan Courtroom.

The 2014 Notre Dame Black Law Students Association alumni weekend will open Friday, March 21, with a reception at the South Bend home of the Hon. Roland Chamblee Jr. and conclude on Sunday with a prayer service in memory of the Hon. Judge Willie Lipscomb, J.D. ’75.

Associate Justice Clarence Thomas of the United States Supreme Court visited Notre Dame Law School the week of February 3, 2014, serving as the James J. Clynes Visiting Chair in Judicial Ethics. Over the course of the week, Justice Thomas co-taught with Professor Richard W. Garnett an intensive seminar on “Religious Freedom and the Establishment Clause.”

Members of the NDLS community and the U.S. Attorney’s Office joined family and friends to support 3L Jason O’Brien at his U.S. Navy ensign commissioning ceremony in the Patrick F. McCartan Courtroom last November.